Man in the News; Cautious Leader in Japan: Tsutomu Hata

This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996.
To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.

Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems.
Please send reports of such problems to archive_feedback@nytimes.com.

Anyone who steps into Tsutomu Hata's apartment will see instantly that it is the dwelling of a typical Japanese "salaryman" -- three cramped rooms, with a washing machine jammed in by the front door and a combination living room, dining room and kitchen piled high with books and papers.

Indeed, part of Mr. Hata's popularity can be explained by the fact that he lives today much as he did when he was a bus-tour operator in the 1960's, before he became what he calls "an accidental politician."

But the selection today of the 58-year-old Foreign Minister to be the next prime minister of Japan and to save the governing coalition from itself was anything but an accident.

After dabbling with a rebel in the Prime Minister's office for the last eight months, the leaders of Japan's fractious coalition have turned to the most cautious of reformers. His predecessor, Morihiro Hosokawa, came into office in August as an outsider advocating reform but having little experience in the brutal back rooms of Tokyo politics.

Mr. Hata, in contrast, is the consummate insider, known for a jovial, modest manner that makes him a superb deal-cutter, but also for an unwillingness to cross Japan's powerful bureaucrats that can drive American negotiators up the wall. 'Country That Can Be Trusted'

Indeed, on television today, Mr. Hata never used the word reform, but spoke about stability, consensus and unity. "I will put all my effort to make Japan a country that can be trusted, loved and understood in international society," he said.

His comments came soon after the parties that make up the governing coalition formally selected him as their nominee. Parliament is expected to elect Mr. Hata on Monday, when he will present his Cabinet.

There is no question that Mr. Hata harbors a rebellious streak of his own. After 24 years in the Liberal Democratic Party, he bolted last year, and helped lead the internal coup that sparked the biggest reordering of the Japanese political system since the end of World War II.

Since then he and his closest political ally, Ichiro Ozawa, Japan's strongest behind-the-scenes political power, have been at the center of reordering Japanese politics, calling for what Mr. Ozawa terms a "normal nation" that plays a far greater role in world affairs and moves beyond Japan's reflexive isolationism.

Mr. Ozawa is still considered a dark figure whom many Japanese say they dislike. Mr. Hata is thus a more acceptable face for their Japan Renewal Party, but he faces a daily barrage of political cartoons portraying him as Mr. Ozawa's puppet. The mentor of both men, Shin Kanemaru, a longtime political boss now on trial for tax evasion, is reputed to have once declared, "Ozawa in time of war, Hata in time of peace." Adroitness Predicted

Members of the party say a likable deal-maker may be just what the country needs after nearly a year of chaos. They say Mr. Hata may not be able to define Japan's problems as clearly as his predecessor, but most who know him believe that he will be far more adroit.

"We can't afford much more idealism," a member of Mr. Hosokawa's party said the other day. "We have too much to get done."

If Mr. Hosokawa was known as a "tonosama," a feudal lord who ruled from the castle, Mr. Hata seems happiest cutting a deal over a bowl of Japanese noodles or during a night of bar-hopping in Akasaka, the neon-lit entertainment district favored by Japanese politicians.

His strength lies in the fact that he, too, had called for change before it became politically fashionable. He advocated opening up the political system to competition and curbing the influence of money, and when it became clear that the leaders of the Liberal Democratic Party were ignoring him, he helped lead the defections last summer that ended the party's 38 years of rule. Apologies for War

He has talked at length about the need to apologize for Japan's crimes in World War II. When the subject turns to the kinds of market-opening changes demanded by Japan's trading partners, especially the United States, he turns vague.

But in a long career that has included stints as Agriculture Minister and Finance Minister, Mr. Hata has never failed to echo the brief he was handed by the bureaucrats in his ministry.

He is still living down his famous defense in the mid-1980's of Japan's refusal to allow in American beef: Japanese intestines, he explained, are much longer than their American equivalents and cannot easily digest the imports.

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

Tsutomu Hata (his first name is pronounced SOO-TOU-MOO) was born on Aug. 24, 1935, in Tokyo, the first son of a family that includes wealthy landowners in Nagano Prefecture, a mountainous region where the 1998 winter Olympics will be held. His father was a newspaper reporter who won election to Parliament in 1937, just as Japan was immersing itself in the war in Asia. Evacuated in 1944

As a boy 50 years ago this spring, Mr. Hata was evacuated to Nagano to escape the American bombing of Tokyo. After the war, his father was expelled from Parliament by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, though he returned to the political world and Parliament in 1952.

Never a remarkable student, the young Mr. Hata graduated from one of Japan's less prestigious institutions, Seijo University, and failed the entrance tests to become a newspaper reporter.

The Sapporo Beer company refused to give him a job, and he got into the bus-tour business only because of a family connection. His first job was counting the fares collected by bus conductors. Two years later, in 1960, he began to direct tours, and his father's contacts led to a political career.

His energy is the first thing many remember. "On a snowy day the windshield wiper of one of the buses broke down," Keijiro Shimano wrote in an instant biography of Mr. Hata that came out this week, "and Tsutomu rode on the hood and cleared the snow off by hand as the bus moved. He was a human wiper."

When Mr. Hata's father fell ill, the Liberal Democratic Party nominated the son for his seat, and he was elected in 1969.

He quickly joined the faction controlled by Kakuei Tanaka, the Prime Minister later implicated in the Lockheed scandal. For years he kept his head down, focusing on agriculture, the major industry of his district. 'Doesn't Care About Money'

By Japanese standards, a colleague of his said the other day, "he is remarkably clean; he doesn't care about money."

But the same was said of Mr. Hosokawa, and the scandal that brought him down proved what political professionals in Japan have said for years: One cannot have served in the Tanaka faction without seeing huge shopping carts of cash from businesses roll by every day.

Mr. Hata was married in 1964, and he and his wife, Yasuko, have two sons, one of whom has been attending Wake Forest University at Winston-Salem, N.C. Mrs. Hata said in a recent magazine interview that she talks about political problems and strategy at length with her husband. Then, she said, he heads off for 20 minutes of Zen meditation every night.

The fear about Mr. Hata is that he has a weak internal compass and will be easily manipulated -- by Mr. Ozawa in politics and by the bureaucrats in everything else.

"I know Mr. Hata very well, but I cannot say he has the ability to lead at this time," Seiichi Ota, a young member of Parliament who bolted the Liberal Democratic Party, said this week. "He is a very obedient person toward the bureaucracy. He will do what they tell him."

American officials tell a tale from about two months ago, when Mr. Hata was sent on an emergency mission to rescue the summit talks between Mr. Hosokawa and President Clinton by papering over their differences and making sure that both leaders could declare victory.

After a day and night of talks, the United States trade representative, Mickey Kantor, sought Mr. Hata out and suggested that they step into his office with their interpreter and see if they could work things out.

In the American version of the story, the bureaucrats who accompanied Mr. Hata discreetly but firmly instructed Mr. Hata not to walk into that room alone. But in the Japanese telling, Mr. Hata himself balked, recalling what an adviser terms "a bitter experience" with American officials who twisted his words.

Either way, a deal never happened, and those who know Mr. Hata say they do not expect to see him concluding one with Americans anytime soon.

A version of this article appears in print on April 23, 1994, on Page 1001003 of the National edition with the headline: Man in the News; Cautious Leader in Japan: Tsutomu Hata. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe